


aliae terrae

by sometimesweareturtles



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Planet, Altean Lance (Voltron), Crash Landing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Galra Keith (Voltron), Half-Galra Keith (Voltron), Isolation, M/M, More tags to be added, No Voltron Lions, POV Lance (Voltron), Prisoner Keith (Voltron), Protective Keith (Voltron), Protective Lance (Voltron), Slow Burn, alternative universe, idk how much i should spoil, the alteans and the galra are still at war, there is no voltron, they crash land on a planet and have to work together to survive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22381315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sometimesweareturtles/pseuds/sometimesweareturtles
Summary: Lance just wanted to prove himself. He wanted to get to the front lines of the war and win it for his planet, wanted to take down the Galra step by step until he was the sole hero of Altea. Instead, he was put on babysitting duty, escorting some useless Galran prisoner back to Altea for interrogation. Veronica told him that Keith could change the entire course of the war in Altea's favor, but Lance just felt ignored and useless.But on the way home, something changed. A monster, an undiscovered space species, a crash landing on a foreign planet, a barren wasteland that held more evidence of the war than space where it was being fought, an unlikely alliance forged in the most desolate of places.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	aliae terrae

**Author's Note:**

> Title is Latin for "other Earths" (or at least, I think it is. Correct me if I'm wrong)  
> Terra, terrae - feminine, first declension noun  
> Alius, alia, alium - 2-1-2 adjective  
> In nominative plural
> 
> Also I'm probably going to change that summary at some point; it's kind of bad. Sorry about that.

The new Galra prisoner was  _ weird _ . 

Lance wasn’t one to judge, but he thought the Galra would be a little more… impressive, for one. The ones that Lance’s ship had been fighting on the front lines had been mammoths, huge fluffy purple people who stood imposingly tall over Lance, who wasn’t short by any means. The prisoner was even shorter than Lance, which was odd for a Galra. His hair was black instead of purple, and his stature and bone structure was distantly Altean. He had two large canines, but the rest of his teeth were flat and looked more like the teeth of an omnivore, and his eyes were yellow but had a purple pupil. Sometimes they glowed in the dark, which was always terrifying. 

He also acted differently from any Galra Lance had ever stories about or seen in person. Most of the Galra, being so large, used brute force. The Galran army was huge, due to their fast gestation period, and they had no need to hide should they feel like attacking someone. The prisoner, on the other hand, walked without making a sound and visibly hunched, like he was trying not to draw attention to himself. The only weapon that had been found on him had been a small knife, and his uniform was dark with purple accents and completely different from any other Galra Lance or his shipmates had ever seen. 

There was only one explanation: he was a spy. 

Which was why Lance’s ship was no longer at the front of the battlefield, no longer leading the way and making a difference for him home planet. Instead, he was being forced to drag this high-priority prisoner back to Altea for questioning. 

Which was dumb, because the prisoner wasn’t even talking! The only thing he’d disclosed was that his name was Keith, which was the dumbest name Lance had ever heard (honestly, it was so ugly). After that, Keith had clammed up, pressing his lips together in a firm line and shaking his head. 

But since the Galra were extremely hard to capture, Keith needed to be taken to Alfor and Allura, the King and Princess of Altea. Something about interrogation and finding out the Galra’s plans. Lance wasn’t entirely sure; Allura, who knew most of the Alteans names, had once told him that he would be a good diplomat, but it wasn’t like he’d ever wanted to try; Lance had wanted to be a fighter since the beginning. Still, he’d been roped into taking Keith back to Altea, since he’d apparently taken a liking to him, or something. Lance for sure hadn’t been pleasant to him, so he wasn’t sure how Keith had decided that, but. He was definitely complaining. 

“Eat up,” Lance said, dumping a bowl of fluorescent green food goo into Keith’s lap. The Galra was sitting in the corner of the cell, hunched over, ears pressed down on his head and his eyes shut. He might have been sleeping, and Lance felt a slight bit of malicious happiness as he lifted his head, blinking against the blue lights and frowning sleepily. His dark hair fell into his face, and he blew it away with a wrinkle of his nose and disgruntled look on his face. It kind of reminded Lance of his old girlfriend, and he could kind of admit that it could be cute, if Keith wasn’t a bloodthirsty Galra who was trying to destroy Lance’s homeplanet. 

“Thanks,” Keith mumbled through a mouthful of goo. He seemed uncomfortable with the spoon that Lance had provided for him, holding it with the tips of his fingers the same way he’d held his knife when the Alteans had captured him. His Galra fangs made chewing look awkward, and a few bits of goo fell out and onto his prisoner garb. 

Lance made a noise of disgust. “Seriously, dude? Do you guys like not ever learn to eat in the Galra empire or something? Too busy destroying people’s lives, or something?”

Keith said nothing, though his eyes flicked up at Lance before returning to his bowl of food.

Lance sighed and plopped down in the doorway. In the beginning of the journey, he had been more nervous, standing alert with his weapon out while he watched Keith eat, but now that they’d been traveling back to Altea for a week (they couldn’t afford to use wormholes, even for such a high priority prisoner; they were needed to carry wounded soldiers and new replacements to and from Altea), Lance was admittedly too relaxed. But he’d seen the special Altean handcuffs work before; they allowed the prisoners to move their hands and legs until they were detected doing something inappropriate. Then they would lock up, snap together in sometimes an uncomfortable fashion; the last prisoner that Lance had seen use them had dislocated their shoulders when trying to attack a guard.

“You’re kinda stupid looking, you know that, right?” Lance offered into the silence, hoping to distract himself from Keith’s obnoxious open-mouthed chewing. “You’re not… scary. You honestly remind me more of a massive purple anthropomorphic cat.” Keith’s ears twitched. “My mom has a really cute cat,” Lance said. “Cuter than you. Little blue thing. Really fluffy tail. He’s kinda spoiled; I think he’s like fifty pounds overweight.”

Silence, except for chewing and the occasional  _ plop! _ as a bit of food goo fell from Keith’s mouth.

“You should try chewing with your mouth closed,” Lance decided. He eyed a bit of green on Keith’s chin, who side-eyed him and slowly wiped it away, before sticking that finger into his mouth and looking adorably smug at Lance’s resulting squawk.

“Do you ever say anything?” Lance complained after sitting in silence for a few minutes. If there was one thing that one could notice when they stepped down onto Altea, it was the constant noise and festivals that plagued the streets and settled deep into the souls of its people. To Alteans, silence was only used in times of danger and desperateness; even in mourning they never shut up. Keith’s silence was really giving Lance the creeps.

“Sorry,” Keith said. More goo fell out of his mouth, much to Lance’s disgust. “We usually only eat solids.” A spoonful of goo disappeared down his throat. “Fangs are making it a little hard.”

Lance snorted. “Should’ve known. Of course the Galra, mighty conquerors of the universe, massive purple cats who have an army that could rival almost any planet, are above eating anything besides the blood and flesh of their enemies! What next, you only sleep on beds made of bones? Do you take showers in the puss from your own wounds?” 

Keith pouted, sticking out his bottom lip and wrinkling his nose. “No, we take dust baths,” he said flatly.

Lance gaped at him. “So - so you’re birds?!”

Keith snorted. “No. I was joking. We take showers, just like you do.”

“Oh.” To be honest, Lance was kind of disappointed. He’d kind of imagined the Galra having weird habits, though he probably should have realized how similar they might be, since the Alteans and Galrans had been close for years before Zarkon came into the picture. The Galra were… kind of boring. You know, besides the whole “I’m going to take over the world and kill everything and everyone who opposes me” deal they had going on.

Keith finished his bowl and held it out to Lance. “Thanks,” he offered. “That’s, uh. That’s what you say in Altea, right?”

Lance eyed him warily, taking the bowl and retreating to the doorway. “Sure,” he said. “Uh, seeya.” And then he escaped.

Veronica was waiting for him in the main room of the ship, the one with the kitchen and the dining table and the old, ratty couch that Lance was pretty sure had been there for all of time. It creaked obnoxiously whenever he sat down, but it was better than the sad standard-issue Altean chairs at the table, which the crew had tried to spice up with plush pillows, but they hadn’t really had much effect. The kitchen was the best part of the ship, though, and that was where Veronica was standing, her elbows on the metal table, backlit from the huge glass window that showed the vast expanse of space. Part of her hair was highlighted with pink from a swirling nebular to her right and her legs were lit by the light of a blue supergiant that drifted like a miniature sun, if the sun was blue. 

“How’s the Galra?” she asked wryly. Lance noticed that she had a half eaten bowl of food goo next to her, so he threw down Keith’s bowl at her feet and snorted.

“Quiet,” he told her. “No appreciation for Altean delicacies. He said that Galra usually eat meat, and oh my  _ god _ , Ronnie, he can’t eat? Like, half the stuff just fell straight back out of his mouth! I don’t know how the Galra do it. Maybe that’s why they went batshit and started trying to take over the world; they all went crazy because of how messy their canteens must be. I thought I was gunna be sick!” 

Veronica laughed. “I’m sure it couldn’t have been that bad. Hey, we’re like a few days from Altea. I think that Hunk is working on your ship right now, but the way.”

Lance frowned. “Woah woah woah, wait. There’s something wrong with Blue?”

“Nothing big,” Veronica reassured him, “and I still can’t believe you named your ship  _ Blue _ .”

Lance scowled. “She’s a perfectly good ship and I won’t let you slander her good name like this! Don’t get mad at her just because  _ your  _ ship got destroyed in close combat and you had to be moved into this big hunk o’ metal.”

Both Veronica and Lance had ships via the large budget of the Altean military during times of war, but Veronica’s had been destroyed during the same battle that Keith had been discovered. That’s why she had been moved to escorting the prisoner home; she had to go back home and wait for a new ship to be issued to her. Lance, on the other hand, had kept his Blue in pristine condition, but was plucked from the battlefield anyway. It was a touchy subject for the both of them.

“Whatever,” Veronica snapped. “We’ll be back in a few days. And I’ll be getting a new ship while you’re stuck with that three year old one. There have been some major breakthroughs in the ship industry recently, so once you see my new one you’ll be so jealous.”

“I don’t want a new ship!” Lance objected. “My lady Blue and I are perfectly happy in this loving relationship. Stop trying to butt your way in because  _ you’re  _ jealous!”

The siblings stared at each other, huffing, until they both started laughing. Veronica shook her head, hair bouncing around her face, still grinning, and pushed her half-eaten bowl of food goo towards Lance. “You want the rest of this? It’s Hunk’s stuff from last night.”

“Um, of course!” Lance said cheerfully, taking the bowl and chomping down on a large spoonful. “Anything Hunk makes is practically pure gold, especially because the war is still going on and they can’t really get anything to the front lines.”

“Well, we’ll be back on Altea soon, so at least that one’s one good thing,” Veronica offered. “Mama will probably make us some of her special juniberry cakes.”

Lance grinned. “I hope so. I’ve been having such awful cravings for those.”

“Right,” Veronica said, stretching and then cracking her neck. Lance winced, making a face at her, but she ignored him (or didn’t see him, one of the two), and then explained, “I think it’s my turn to pilot, so I better go relieve Kinkade. See you later, Lance.”

“See you,” Lance echoed, scarfing down the rest of Veronica’s leftovers. He dumped the empty bowl and spoon into the sink, and then headed through the ship towards his room. 

-

Lance had just gotten out of the shower and was lying sprawled across his bed, arms and legs out in a starfish position as he listened to the music blasting from the speaker on the floor next to him. He rolled onto his side, bringing his blanket with him, and buried his face into his pillow, hoping to get some sleep before the long night shift he’d been assigned to, probably by Veronica (this was why he hated having a sibling as a superior). The beds in this ship were much more comfortable than the small cot he had in Blue, but he still felt that it was more worth it to be out on the battlefield actually making a difference in the war, instead of babysitting for a useless Galra that Lance didn’t even think was going to have any good information. Still, there was nothing he could do to change it, and he had to follow his commander’s orders lest he be punished, so he stuffed his face into his fluffy pillow and tried to drown the world out. 

Lance hadn’t even been lying there for five minutes when Veronica’s grating voice came over the intercom. “Lance,” she snapped. “Wake up.”

“I’m up,” he grumbled back, curling up further into his bed. “If I had been released from this hell into the relief of my dreams I’d sound a lot happier.”

Veronica snorted. “Get up, Lance. Don’t pretend like I don’t know you’re still in bed. We’re,” a pause, “we’re, uh, seeing a disturbance.”

That woke him up, though admittedly not as much as it probably should have. He was rather tired. “A disturbance?”

“Yeah, so get your ass up here,” Veronica said. It was a joking tone, but Lance could hear an underlying note of tension to her words, so he figured it must not be a prank, unless his sister had somehow become really good at lying in the past fifteen minutes. 

“I’m coming,” Lance said, heaving himself off his bed. 

Veronica was with the rest of the crew on the main deck when Lance arrived, suit and armor haphazardly pulled on and helmet tucked underneath his arm. The team was crowded around the main table in the center, with its inlaid screen lit up with information.

“What’s up?” Lance asked, setting his helmet down on the table. 

Veronica looked up, frowning. “There’s some type of creature out there, but we’re not sure what it is.”

“Really?” Lance asked, stepping over. “This is a pretty popular part of the galaxy for Altean ships, though. Aren’t all the species documented?”

“Not this one, apparently,” Veronica said. The tablet made a small beeping noise and Veronica frowned. She muttered something into her wristlet and after a moment a few new buttons and lights popped up. She clicked on one, and a moving picture was pulled up, which she offered to the rest of the team. 

The quality was crisp, though the creature was rather far away and slightly blurry. As it got closer, Lance curled his lip, making a disgusted face. It looked like some sort of fish, with a shockingly red face and a gray body, its fins flared out as it swam through the air, opening and closing its mouth like a goldfish in a tank. It had a line of dark scales along its side that seemed to catch the light from their ships’ windows, and its eyes were dark. It had a huge bulb on its head like a tumour, only half opaque with a texture like mucus. Inside the growth was what looked like half-destroyed planets and ships, crumpled together and eroding, disintegrating into gooey planet slime that sloshed around. 

“Attractive,” Lance said dryly. 

The fish turned towards them.

“Oh, shit,” Veronica blurted.

What type of fish had their stomach on their head? That’s what Lance wanted to know. He made a weird face at the fish. 

“Get ready,” Veronica ordered. “I think this thing eats ships. Look - there’s an Altean one right there.” She pointed at the thing’s bulb and the entire crew made a collective cry of disgust at the sight of the half-digested metal, sticky with the fish’s stomach acids and slowly melting into a texture that looked like lumpy yogurt. Its lights were out and Lance could see a few pieces of equipment slowly floating out of a melted opening in the side of the fish. 

“It might not be hungry,” Lance offered. He pointed at the thing’s bulb. “I mean, it looks kind of full.”

The fish seemed to speed up, opening its mouth wide, swimming straight towards their ship. Its fins flared up even more, and Lance could make out small, jagged little pieces of cartilage just under its lips, which was weird, because he was no fish expert but he was pretty sure they didn’t have teeth. At least, not the ones on Altea; maybe space had mutated this one, or something. Then again, most fish didn’t eat planets and spaceships, so Lance’s information was probably inaccurate for this species.

“I think it’s hungry,” one of the crew members said cautiously. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Lance acquiesced. 

Veronica began to snap out orders, sending some of their crew to the bow of the ship and some to the canons. Lance made to follow a small group down to their ships, but his sister grabbed his arm and yanked him in the opposite direction, toward the prison. 

“No,” she ordered him. Lance opened his mouth to shout something in disagreement, but she slapped a palm over his face. “Lance, I know you’re itching to fight and to prove yourself and to become a hero or whatever, but our priority here is the Galra. Even if he doesn’t deserve it, we need to save him. Any information we can glean from him could help our cause in the war, and we can’t risk him.”

“So  _ I  _ have to defend him?” Lance spluttered. “How - that fish thing will just eat our ship! It’s not like me standing in front of his cell will stop us all from getting eaten alive.”

“I know,” Veronica said sharply. “That’s why you’re going to be taking him down to one of the escape pods and getting out of here until it’s safe.”

“What?!” Lance screeched. “Are you kidding me, Veronica? I’m a  _ fighter pilot _ ! I should be out there protecting our ship! What if it eats you?”

“This isn’t arguable, Lance. I’ve made my decision. Get the goddamn Galra, put him in an escape pod or Blue or whatever, and get him back to Altea if something bad happens to us.” She shoved him in the chest and sent him towards the prison. “You’re our best pilot, so you’re my best bet. This Galra could change  _ everything  _ for us. We need to get him back to Altea.  _ Go _ .”

Lance clenched his fists, mouth open to retort, but one look at his sister’s face made him realize that there was no way he was going to be winning that argument. He scowled at her, and retreated, turning around and sprinting towards the prison.

Keith was asleep when he go there, and he stormed inside, slamming his hand on the panel to open the door and snarled at him to get up. He seemed sleepy, his eyes squinted and glowy against his purple fur, but he slowly stumped to his feet and allowed Lance to drag him out of the cell by one arm. All the while, Lance muttered angrily under his breath, blinking rapidly to stop the tears forming in his eyes. “Goddamn Galra,” he grumbled, “always showing up and ruining everything. The galaxy would be so much better without them.” He glanced back at Keith, who had woken up a little bit more and was now jogging briskly behind him. “Y’know,” he told him darkly, pointing an accusing finger, “without you, I’d still be on the front lines. I’d still be able to help my planet! Or I’d at least be protecting this ship and my crewmates against weird space fish. But no, apparently I’m a glorified  _ babysitter _ now, because I have to take care of you! You came in here and just - just - usurped my position. I was rising in the ranks, getting the attention of my commanders, and then  _ you  _ arrived and nullified all that progress!”

He punched a button to open the doors to the hanger, and dragged Keith over to Blue, sitting him down in the back. He saw the Galra look around at her interior, at the hanging lights and the pictures tacked to the side of the wall, the little trinkets from past adventures and the communication device with its shattered screen in the corner. In the back, a string holding a few blanket was strung between two walls, and a few more were crumpled in the corner. After a moment of deliberation, he brought Keith over to the pilot chair and hooked his handcuffs through a bar at its back. 

“Hold on,” he said gruffly, and started Blue up.

Going into space felt as good as it always did, even if the circumstances weren’t the best. Lance hadn’t flown in a while, and he’d forgotten how much he’d been craving it. Even the Galra sat behind him couldn’t squash his growing elation with his ship, and the feeling of weightlessness that came with going into space.

Blue wasn’t in the best state, but she got the job done. Her engine sputtered slightly and her body tipped side to side, but Lance stayed calm and directed her out of the hanger. Keith made disgruntled noises from behind, and Lance could hear his body shifting back and forth across the floor as the ship was twisted around, the clanging of handcuffs distracting. 

And then there was a bang.

“Quiznak!” Lance yelled, yanking on the controls in an effort to get out of the way. And then, a second later, “Fuck!”

The fish was even bigger close up. Its skin no longer looked like scales, but like flakes of soft rubber, and as part of its tail smacked Blue, small parts tore off like the tender flesh of a chicken. Blue tilted dangerously, both of her occupants scrabbling to grab a hold. Her already groaning engine made puffs of protest, whirring away under their feet as she was flung away. 

“Is it going to eat us?!” Keith demanded from the floor of the ship. 

Lance jerked his controls, managing to pull Blue away a little bit. The fish wasn’t facing them; Lance could see its big, translucent bulge pointed towards Veronica. Its fins and tail were waving spectacularly, and that was what had caused Blue her troubles.

“No,” Lance snapped, “but it  _ is  _ going to eat my sister,” and he turned the ship around and pressed back towards the fish’s gaping jaw and flaring fins.

“What are you doing?” Keith yelped, getting tossed against the floor, purple limbs looking oddly out of place against the blue and grey Altean technology. His arms were twisted at a weird angle because of the handcuffs strapping him to the back of Lance’s chair, and he struggled to get his feet underneath him, propping himself back up only to be knocked down again on the next turn. “You’re going to get us both killed!”

“It’s my  _ sister,  _ asshole,” Lance retorted. 

“I’m sure your sister can handle herself,” Keith said through gritted teeth as he was thrown around in the back.

“Yeah, against you Galra, because you’re  _ weak _ ,” Lance insulted. “Not against some undiscovered species that can eat whole ships!”

The fish was twisting its body quickly through the air, swerving around shots from the ship and the smaller blasts from the fighter jets that surrounded it like bees around their hive. Lance grunted as he swung in the other direction to avoid one of the fish’s fins. He started his own blast, but Blue shuddered and slowed.

“Watch it!” Keith yelled.

Lance was flung out of his seat as the fish’s tail collided with the underside of one of Blue’s wings. It shattered, bursting in a firework of shards of metal and glass, and part of her hull dented, curling in towards the cockpit like a kitten reaching for its mother. He bit down on his tongue as his head collided with the side of his beloved (and now mutilated) ship, and made a small whimper as his vision started to creep up on him, casting him into darkness and the blue lights in the cockpit flickered out.

**Author's Note:**

> The fish monster thing is sort of based on a flowerhorn. I'd suggest going to [Foo the Flowerhorn's YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Kk8tvhHkWMMfKBb0q0X9g) if you want to learn more about them; the videos are really relaxing. 
> 
> I've sort of planned this out, but just the basic outline, and I'll add more tags as I go along. Question: Do I put spoilers in the tags? There is some other stuff I could add but I don't want to spoil the entire thing. It's mostly just character information, though, and the violence tag should suffice. I'm not going to have any major character death or anything, don't worry. 
> 
> Slight disclaimer, the characters might be a little OOC. I haven't actually finished the show yet, so I'm more familiar with the fanon versions of the characters than the canon versions. Also, there is going to be a lot of me making up random stuff about the Alteans and the Galra, so just bear with me. It might contradict itself. 
> 
> Happy reading! <3


End file.
